Open top hop boiling bag and immersion cooler

[soupdragon]

Hi all

As I don't have a tap on my boiling pot I currently jug out into my voile lined fermenter to filter the hop debris and break material.
I'm wondering what the possibilities are of using a voile bag in the boiler? Leaving the top open for all hop additions. From what I've read the voile wouldn't get scorched on the base of the pot. My main concern is what happens when I put my cooling coil in. It would obviously push the floating bag onto the bottom of the pot with the risk of melting.
My thoughts so far are to remove the voile bag, put the cooling coil in then put the bag back in. But where? Would it be better placed in the centre of the coil or at the side? I've not done any measuring up as yet but the pot is a standard issue 32 litre job similar to those that Rob sells. The cooling coil was from Leyland homebrew and takes up about 2/3 of the space inside the pot.
I know the best option is to bite the bullet and fit a tap and filter but for now do you have any other ideas?

Cheers Tom

[irv]

i don't have a tap either. i pour the wort into the fermentor through a kitchen sieve, balanced over the top of the bucket. i feel that it helps oxygenate, and also any hops or cold break just settle out, the beer still ends up clear.

i am doing small batches at the moment ( roughly 12 - 16 litre) for bigger volumes i would fit the tap and filter, and either use a pump or gravity.

[Fil]

Sounds like your referring to a hop spider, if you line the whole pot with a bag your in danger of having the boil lift the bag with the rising bubbles of steam..

heres mine in action..


simply a grain bag and some offcuts of 10mm soft easybend copper tube and 3 x end solder T pieces..
others use SS threaded rod and other bits..
https://byo.com/build-it-yourself/item/ ... r-projects

you can also buy premium SS mesh versions..
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HOMEBREW-BEER ... 0945571010
#30 mesh for flower hops, #40 for pellets iirc..

with the bag i find it has a tendency to float on top of the boil,, but as there was no hop material in the boil i simply pumped from the kettle drain back into the hop spider to keep the bag full and the liquor flowing through the hops.. my bag designed to be a bottom draining grain bag has tightknit double cloth walls, so inflates somewhat too as the flow out is through the wider mesh bottom..

[soupdragon]

Hmmm

I was banking on the bag getting caught in the vigor of the boil enough to keep it up from the base of use pot but never considered that it may just float. Would the hops, once soaked in wort, be enough to keep things submerged?
After looking at those hop spider things I'm now thinking that I might just put the cooler in at the start of the boil with the bag inside and with the top opened out over the rim of the pot.
Does that sound workable?

Cheers Tom

[Fil]

if you enclose the pot rim in a net bag i think the steam generated by the boil could balloon the whole bag out and spill all the hops out, a fine wet mesh can be almost airtight, and there is a lot of power in steam

Re-reading the original post its unclear what problem your trying to sort out? is it a risk of infection from an unsanitsed net filter in the FV? in which case you could pour in hot to pasturise the net and chill in the FV with the boiler sanitised IC?

hopsocks (knotted muslin knitted tube to contain the boil hops) float and bob about when saturated, i dont think there is much mass in a hop petal to sink even when fully hydrated.

you could try hopsocks, tho be prepared to consider them single use jobbies as picking out the embedded petal and twig fragments after use was too much effort for me

[Martin G]

Looking at the hop spider makes me wonder if an immersion chiller could double as a spider? If you have a good wide diameter coil with the bag fitted into the middle? I have used grain bags for hops and just tie the pull cord to the handle, never noticed a difference in utilisation despite the bag being much smaller than the boil volume.

[soupdragon]

After I've emptied the contents of my pot into the voile lined fermenter I then lift the bag out. The issue is that with all the break material clogging the voile is takes an age to get the wort to drain from the bag. I have to stand over the fermenter holding the bag, I quite often need to move the contents around inside the bag to find a part of the material that hasn't been blocked by the "gunge".
I didn't mind so much when I first started doing it but now it's really getting to be a pain.
Getting another pot with a tap and filter is a way off yet so I'm trying to find a way of easing the issue

Cheers Tom

[Fil]

After I've emptied the contents of my pot into the voile lined fermenter I then lift the bag out. The issue is that with all the break material clogging the voile is takes an age to get the wort to drain from the bag. I have to stand over the fermenter holding the bag, I quite often need to move the contents around inside the bag to find a part of the material that hasn't been blocked by the "gunge".
I didn't mind so much when I first started doing it but now it's really getting to be a pain.
Getting another pot with a tap and filter is a way off yet so I'm trying to find a way of easing the issue

Cheers Tom

OK on the same page now

Perhaps once chilled and left to settle in the kettle you could siphon out protecting the siphon dip tube with something like .......
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_odkw= ... l&_sacat=0

Or simply pour as is through a coarser mesh, or just a big sieve? afaik break material in the FV isnt a problem it jst drops out as trub, and can even supply the yeast with building blocks and nutriants too.

Or just use a hop spider or bag hooked over the pot rim, and weigh it down to stop it floating just dont buy the ebay china SS balls i did for the job, they are hollow and float

[orlando]

Fit a ball valve with a Bazooka filter, use a local engineering company to cut the hole if you can't, I had one cut for a fiver took 2 minutes.

[soupdragon]

I think I'll try the cooler in at start of boil with voile bag inside the coil and see how that goes
Thanks for all the words of wisdom

Cheers Tom

[soupdragon]

if you enclose the pot rim in a net bag i think the steam generated by the boil could balloon the whole bag out and spill all the hops out, a fine wet mesh can be almost airtight, and there is a lot of power in steam

I've just re read this and the penny dropped. I'd completely forgotten the fact that if I have the voile around the rim of the pot it'll restrict the exit of steam
I'll have to give a bit more thought to how to attach the bag to the top of the coil rather than the rim of the pot

Cheers Tom

[soupdragon]

Fit a ball valve with a Bazooka filter, use a local engineering company to cut the hole if you can't, I had one cut for a fiver took 2 minutes.

I must admit that it'd save a lot of bother if I did fit a tap and dedicated filter. A friend of mine has a pot with tap and filter fitted, I'll see if I can borrow it for a future brew day

Cheers Tom